2017 keynote speaker

2017 ARCS Symposium

Keynote Speaker

2017 ARCS Symposium

Keynote Speaker

Alex Filippenko, Ph.D.

Professor of Astronomy

University of California, Berkeley

Symposium Keynote Address

“Using observations of exploding stars, we have discovered that the space between galaxies is expanding at a progressively faster rate, probably driven by mysterious, repulsive ‘dark energy’ that dominates the overall matter plus energy content of the Universe.”

Biography

Alex Filippenko is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences at UC Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Caltech in 1984 and joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1986. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 and to the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. One of the world’s most highly cited astronomers, Filippenko has coauthored more than 840 scientific publications and has received numerous prizes for his research. He was a member of both teams whose leaders were awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Selected the National Professor of the Year in 2006, Filippenko has won the top teaching awards at UC Berkeley, and students have voted him the “Best Professor” on campus nine times. He has appeared in numerous TV documentaries, produced several astronomy video courses with The Teaching Company, and coauthored an award-winning textbook. An avid tennis player, hiker, skier, whitewater rafter, and snorkeler, he enjoys world travel and is addicted to observing total solar eclipses (15 so far).